A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses

You owe it to yourself to read Der Spiegel’s take on the farcical nature of the GOP nomination fight for President:

Africa is a country. In Libya, the Taliban reigns. Muslims are terrorists; most immigrants are criminal; all Occupy protesters are dirty. And women who feel sexually harassed — well, they shouldn’t make such a big deal about it.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the US Republicans. Or rather, to the twisted world of what they call their presidential campaigns. For months now, they’ve been traipsing around the country with their traveling circus, from one debate to the next, one scandal to another, putting themselves forward for what’s still the most powerful job in the world.

Read it, if you can stomach it.

If you appreciate an independent voice holding Montana politicians accountable and informing voters, and you can throw a few dollars a month our way, we would certainly appreciate it.

About the author

Don Pogreba

Don Pogreba is an eighteen-year teacher of English, former debate coach, and loyal, if often sad, fan of the San Diego Padres and Portland Timbers. He spends far too many hours of his life working at school and on his small business, Big Sky Debate.
His work has appeared in Politico and Rewire.
In the past few years, travel has become a priority, whether it's a road trip to some little town in Montana or a museum of culture in Ísafjörður, Iceland.

21 Comments

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I liked Michael Moore’s take on that process, roughly paraphrased, that Wall Street holds enormous power to find and back a candidate and give him a slick ad campaign and favorable media exposure from all outlets, but hasn’t taken the trouble to do so. Perhaps the reason for this is that they have their man already, and his name is Obama.

They have their man, alright. But it’s certainly not Obama. Every time a particularly bad Republican candidate falters, every time the media pushes him out of the running, it is a blow for Obama as much as it is for Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry or Herman Cain. None of them has the rudimentary knowledge or basic skills to be elected president. Now, if your theory is true, and the media can essentially destroy whoever they want to, it’s pretty clear that Mitt Romney must be their darling. And why not?

He (or potentially Gingrich, but that’s harder to see) can be elected, and if elected, will likely be effective. Whoever controls the Senate after the next election is going to face obstructionism on a scale likely as large as exists now. Mitt Romney is probably closer in ideology to many Democrats (including our two in Montana) than Barack Obama is. The more typically red states that Obama managed to win in 2008 will sooner go to Romney than they would to Cain or Perry, and once elected he will be able to pass much more legislation favorable to corporations than a more polarizing candidate.

Again we differ, and on a much higher level than your post addresses. You assume that once they enter the Senate, members carry forth with the stated agenda of the campaign. therefore, electing Democrats will suffice to enact a more progressive agenda. If the opposite were true, I don’t think you would be capable of seeing it.

The exact opposite is true. Campaigns are mere advertising devices having nothing to do with public policy.

At the presidential level, you assume that the media is complicit in backing or not backing this or that candidate. They are capable of that, they do that, but do so by the exposure given to the candidates and the light they cast on them. So when Ron Paul , whom I would not vote for but believe to be independent-minded, is second in polls, media do not say this. He is a non-candidate. Howard Dean was destroyed by a media scam.

Obama-Romney is no different than Obama-Clinton, win-win for power elites with J
Edwards destroyed. Edwards, if he was not independent minded, would never have been destroyed. No one cares about prsonal morals. that’s incidental, used to destroy some, ignored in others, like Bush.

Romney is unable to advance because of the Christian base in the Republican Party, and media has nothing to do with that, never even mentions it. The other candidates are treated as serious and viable even though the are idiots (Huntsman is a serious man, but like Paul, barely exists). They self-destruct, though it should be mentioned that George W. Bush could have as easily self-destructed, but when one lone reporter did go after his seedy past, Dan Rather, the reporter was destroyed.

In other words, the game is rigged. If Romney unseats Obama, money is OK with that. If not, money is happy with that. If money wanted to unseat Obama, he’d never have even caught a whiff of the presidency. Does the simple fact that his largest contributors were Wall treet bankers mean nothing to you?

I should mention that of all the candidates, I much prefer Gingrich over all of them, including Obama. I think he is independent-minded, capable of change, willing to risk unpopularity for his beliefs, so that he just possibly might not buckle under pressure as Obama has. If nothing else, he is a point of reference around which opposition can can crystallize. We’d be in better shape with that than with The One, a false prophet.

“Edwards, if he was not independent minded, would never have been destroyed.”

So why was Herman Cain? Why was Dominique Strauss-Kahn? Are they such paragons of independence that they had to have their political careers destroyed? If the elites, the ‘interests’, are the ones determining whose personal failures become political fiascos, why would they go after a millionaire promising to give them a flat tax, or the millionaire head of the IMF?

Kain is an idiot, simply stated. As was Bachmann … I don’t think that the media destroyed them. The media simply did not protect them from themselves. The big question is the dog that did not bark. Why is there no credible candidate to take on Obama? Why has Baucus only once had a tough race? If money wants to give all kinds of money and groom a candidate and put together a slick and professional campaign for someone, they certainly know how.

Oh, wait. Obama got all that money, got the ad campaign. I forgot. He’s rolling in dough right now, Wall Street money is still with him. It has not abandoned him and backed a Republican.

I don’t know if you see it, but Obama has not changed anything. If there is going to be a flat tax, he is the one to bring it, and not some Republican who would foment opposition. That’s how politics works – misdirection.

I think back to the last presidential primaries and election and seem to remember many gaffes committed by Obama, Biden, and Clinton. Don’t recall any editorials by you brimming with the same level of judgmental arrogance lambasting them for being “Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses.” Perhaps you have selective memory.

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